A Taste of Torah: Weekly Commentary from the JTS Community

Parashat Bo 5763
Exodus 10:1 - 13:16
January 11, 2003 8 Shevat 5763

This week's commentary was written by Rabbi Lewis Warshauer.

I am fortunate to be able to teach to people who know how to ask
questions. My students are part of the universe of transmitters and
receivers of Judaism. Yet I sometimes wonder about people who are not in
my orbit. It is as if a traveler comes to Earth and occupies himself
with its inhabitants and their activities, and then looks out into the
vast deep darkness of space and wonders who is out there in that domain
of silence.

Many Jews are like the fourth son of the Passover Hagaddah, the son who
does not know how to ask. The Hagaddah responds to that son even though
he does not ask a question. The response is a quote from this week's
parasha, concerning the future observance of Passover:

You shall tell (v'higgadeta, same root as Haggadah) your son on that day,
saying, because of this which God did for me when He brought me out of
Egypt. (Exodus 13:8)

Samson Raphael Hirsch, communal rabbi and commentator from mid
19-Century Germany, explains this response in his commentary to the
Haggadah. Hirsch notes that we are to speak of God not as the God of our
nation, or our ancestors but of ourselves. If one seriously wishes to
raise his children as Jews, he will first endeavor to become a truly
accomplished Jew himself. The Passover story is not to be told in the
way that children are told memories of the past. Hirsch explains that if
one celebrates Passover and performs its mitzvot, not simply as a
memorial to an event in history but as foundation of one's own
existence, then the child will accept from the parent this ever-renewing
heritage of redemption and consecration.

What goes for Passover goes for other holidays as well. There is a
crucial difference between Jewish holidays and secular holidays such as
Thanksgiving or Independence Day. The secular holidays are a view toward
that past that rarely provide a bridge to the present or future. The
Jewish holidays are intended to be part of the education mission of
Judaism: to recall the past precisely for the purpose of showing its
ongoing meaning in the life of individual Jews today.

Jewish life has been revitalized in many ways and for many people. Yet
there are still too many Jews for whom Judaism is a faint transmission
being heard occasionally on a static-filled receiver. It is the
responsibility of the transmitters to boost the power of the
transmission. It is also the responsibility of the receivers to
endeavor, as Hirsch put it, to become truly accomplished Jews themselves.

Shabbat shalom.

The publication and distribution of the JTS KOLLOT: Voices of
Learning commentary has been made possible by a generous gift from Sam and Marilee Susi